The Mt. Monadnock Blues — Larry Duberstein

Just turned forty and living alone, Tim Bannon is sliding comfortably into midlife crisis when his orphaned niece and nephew arrive on his doorstep. Though Tim loves these two children, he has his doubts about being in loco parentis. For starters, he is gay and the year is 1990 -- long before the age of gay buddies on primetime TV. 1990 is a time of terror, a time when even perfectly nice people fear they will die from touching a gay friend. If they have one. Nor is it clear that Tim's surviving sister, Erica, and her husband, Earl, are perfectly nice people. Sexy, flaky, undirected Erica and redneck, unapologetically reactionary Earl (who, Tim is sure, shoots his dogs to simplify summer travel plans) have their own doubts about Tim's fitness, and they enjoin a New Hampshire court to take the kids from him. As Tim marshals friends, colleagues, lawyers, and shrinks (Bannon's Queer Army of the Republic) to do battle against Earl and his folksy lawyer Merle, The Mt. Monadnock Blues draws us deeper into an edgy, moving, and often hilarious family tale, played out against the backdrop of a glorious New England summer.